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Crime and punishment
Background * In 2006, violent crime saw a 2.5 percent national increase. : Violent crime in St. Paul rose only 1.5 percent. * Planks about crime and punishment from Mark Rauterkus * Suggestion from City Paper about Citizens Police Review Board from January 2006 Update Mayor's muscle New Mayor, Bob O'Connor, is to team with Allegheny County District Attorney, Stephen Zappala, Jr. Zappala offered the county's grand jury subpoena and electronic surveillance powers to O'Connor for use in prosecuting street-crime cases in the city. The grand jury has typically focused on cases of official corruption. "I think what we haven't done well as a community is we haven't brought assets to bear to assist in the city," Zappala said. "We're going to try to bring more and more assets, county assets, grand jury assets to assist the city police." Issues Jury Duty Pittsburgh has had a problem getting a wide mix of county residents to serve on jury duty. Day Care and Court Accomidations A tiny day-care room exists within the halls of the court. It is nice. It should be able to help in more instances. We will move to expand services to parents and families that need temporary care for their kids when visiting public offices. Enemy of the Kids McDonalds has climbers, ball-pits, and areas for kids that are built into their facilities. Stores such as Ikea and many grocery chains in other parts of the country offer supervised, safe, secure, areas for temporary child care. Often these areas have cameras and dozens of monitors throughout the facility so that the parents / adults can peek on the kids while the other business is being done. Pittsburgh, and city hall is way behind the times. In Pittsburgh's Downtown neighborhood, you can't even find a swing set. We need to integrate elements of kid care into offices within city government. Avoiding Pardons for Guilty We need to be very slow to pardon anyone. Reports say 95% of the crimes are committed by 5% of the criminals. I would move to eliminate or greatly restrict parole for violent offenders. It is insane to let these people out of jail, especially since we've finally gotten them into jail, through our convoluted legal system. Every violent criminal will serve every single day of their sentence. Crime is an issue that comes up again and again. Many people are afraid to venture out of their homes or travel freely around the city. Many don't trust their own neighborhoods at various times. This is unacceptable. This weighs on the minds and actions of the people. Let's work to reduce the threat of crime. There are things that the a mayor or a governor can do unilaterally, without the consent or assistance of the Legislature to reduce crime. These acts are to begin in the first days on the job. * Eliminate parole for violent criminals. Make violent criminals serve their entire sentence without parole. :It's nothing short of insane to let violent criminals out of jail before their time has been served. Studies show that 5% of the criminals commit 95% of the crimes, so why are we setting these people free? It's tough enough getting a conviction in our convoluted judicial system, so putting these people back on the streets is the last thing we want to do. Prison Behaviors The new county jail is overcrowded. Those being held had been getting drugs and have been abused and even suffered a rash of intimate relationships from the guards. Chief executives and managers must be willing and able to topple the status quo, to insure a base-line of professionalism in behaviors and act in aggressive ways to replace or retire those who are unfit for public service of the highest order. Curses Corruptness exist in a wide range of offices: the jail, dope selling in the controllers office, illegal campaign ads in the mayor's office, and more. To assume innocence is a gross generosity. * Stadium construction had illegal contract pass throughs, * Water authority storm drain / catch basin scam, Keep repeat offenders in prison Right now, we have people in prison who don't belong there. Some nonviolent weed smokers are behind bars. So, we release murderers and rapists to make room for pot smoking Grateful Dead fans. It's insane. A person who cannot be trusted to buy a gun should be in jail. If we keep dangerous individuals in jail, we will not need criminal background checks for gun purchases. Clean Kids Drug sellers need to be behind bars. We need to catch them and remove them from our streets of our community. If you sell pot or provide it to a kid, no mercy is due in the sentences. If you sell or provide tobacco to kids, no mercy. If you sell or provide beer and alchohol to kids, no mercy. Kid Issues The teens in this town have been ignored. Our Recreation Centers have been closed for two years. When the centers operated, they were good, but there was no way that they were able to address all the kids in the neighborhoods. The rec centers activiites often ignored the girls. Still, the trouble-makers steered away from the Rec Centers and thousands of kids could turn to the Rec Centers and find a safe haven so as to side-step trouble. Decriminalize Every nonviolent drug offender that hasn't impacted any kids goes home from jails to make room for the really bad apples. I don't think that pot smokers should be kept in prison at $30,000 a year. Links * War On Drugs * Weed and Seed Program in Pittsburgh * Courts * Graffiti * Asset forfeiture * Corruption * Prisons * wikinews:Portal:Crime_and_law Media * Shocks From the System - Op-Ed by MAIA SZALAVITZ of the NY Times from January 7, 2007 ** ALTHOUGH the New York State Department of Education bans corporal punishment, each year it uses taxpayer money to send dozens of children with emotional or learning disabilities to schools that use physically and mentally abusive forms of behavior modification. These include electric shocks, seclusion and sleep and food deprivation. Because these punishments are euphemized as “aversive therapy,” they have until recently stayed under the department’s radar.